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A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

latimes.com

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Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#41

Post by ben_jones »

It's been awhile but the AP exam for me was nothing but rote memorization. You memorize how to solve n types (10? 15? 20?) of problems and then you grind through the test a) identify what type of problem it is b) apply algorithm to solve.

Furthermore the AP exam environment, IMO, varied by the school giving it. I could have easily stored formulas in my calculator (for the calculator section), I could have easily colluded with classmates, and if my teachers wanted to, they could've easily given me the answers. It was a bit of a joke really. Multiple phones went off during the exam, no penalties were given (which I agree is the right approach, but it does say something about the exam itself).

The prestige of the AP program and the experience of taking a number of AP courses has contributed to my declining respect for our higher education system really.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#42

Post by jasonjei »

schoen wrote: post #40
jasonjei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took AP Latin: Vergil in high school. That was one of the hardest classes I've ever had to take because the grammar is so complex (I'm also not surprised Japanese has few perfect scores). I know I didn't get a passing score. I'm surprised however that Chinese has no perfect scores. I remember some students that had moved from Taiwan or China would take AP Chinese to get free college credits. The grammar of Chinese…

> That was one of the hardest classes I've ever had to take because the grammar is so complex Did you study Latin for several years before? I think that class is typically intended for people who have already studied Latin at the high school level for three years (most likely reading Caesar or other authors first). That would give a lot more opportunity to become familiar with Latin grammar rules.

Yeah, I took it from 8th grade to 12th grade. In my class of 10 or so students, only one of us got a passing score. Perhaps our teacher didn't adequately challenge us. We had read Cicero and other Latin literature yet Latin grammar always seemed so challenging for me to parse. I could make out enough meaning but never do a literal translation well enough. I took it because I couldn't speak any of the Romance languages ;) I would have taken Japanese or Chinese in a heartbeat if they were offered since I had lived in Taiwan in my middle school years.

I got all the rules (declensions, conjugations, etc) but I always had trouble piecing them collectively. A lot of the declension endings would be the same (such as 4th declension nouns) and it was hard for me to differentiate between a nominative and accusative in the context of a sentence. Hence I never studied Latin in college. I'm sure the world is a much better place for that. Wow, I can't believe I am reopening old wounds from 12 years ago ;)

I genuinely believe the single perfect test score is also empirical proof of the difficulty of Latin in an English-speaking world...

I would much rather parse MIPS assembly all day than read Latin.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#43

Post by hdctambien »

hammock wrote: post #7
pilom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most colleges give credits for 3 and above on AP exams so many people think of a 3 as "passing".

Source? All the schools I looked at required a 4 or 5.

State law in Texas now, all (Texas) public universities must accept a 3 for some sort of credit.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#44

Post by dctoedt »

ejcx wrote: post #4

This article is strange. Unless something has changed recently, AP exams do not have a concept of pass or fail. You get a score and colleges can choose to give you college credit based on the score. I got a 1 on the AP Calculus exam but colleges wanted a 3 or a 4 or a 5 depending on their requirements to give me credit for college calc. So I have no idea what it means to have everybody 'pass'. I have no doubt he's pr…

A few years ago, someone at Oxford University's admissions office said that U.S. students have almost no chance of getting in if they don't have 4 or 5 on various AP exams.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#45

Post by jimhefferon »

hammock wrote: post #7
pilom wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most colleges give credits for 3 and above on AP exams so many people think of a 3 as "passing".

Source? All the schools I looked at required a 4 or 5.

Yes, I teach Math at a college, and am a former dept chair. We require 4 or 5, as do the folks I talk to at other schools.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#46

Post by stephengillie »

jakub_g wrote: post #25

Side note, FYI some embedded ad redirects me to the scammy "fix your Android" thing full of alerts and vibrating the phone. This has been a nightmare on Android recently, happens more and more even on high profile websites. Time to reconsider Firefox Mobile and put and adblocker I think...

Whitelisting JavaScript is an okay solution for those not willing to switch from Chrome just yet.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#47

Post by uxp »

ktRolster wrote: post #20
fisherjeff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any reason why the two should be mutually exclusive

It's more like an ordering: improving teacher skill should come before forcing them into a system.

Common core is _what_ they should be teaching. Soft skills is _how_ they should be teaching.

I'm fine if you want to hate on the Common Core like so many, but these points are so completely unrelated this argument doesn't make any sense. We aren't min/maxing teachers like we would with our character in an MMORPG, these are human people.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#48

Post by ktRolster »

uxp wrote: post #47
ktRolster wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like an ordering: improving teacher skill should come before forcing them into a system.

Common core is _what_ they should be teaching. Soft skills is _how_ they should be teaching. I'm fine if you want to hate on the Common Core like so many, but these points are so completely unrelated this argument doesn't make any sense. We aren't min/maxing teachers like we would with our character in an MMORPG, these are human people.

ltr: no one is hating on common core.

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#49

Post by lbenes »

I’ve traveled to Europe and Asia and it’s saddening to see what a difference they place on the value of Education/teacher compared to us. NC is ranked 48th in the country and willing to give away almost a billion dollars in federal funding over the right to bully transgender individuals.[1][2] Then we have Texas spending 64-million on a high school stadium.[3]

How did we get into this mess where our culture values sports over education? How can we get out of it?

[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/19cce15048484abcac18c836f8c0b...

[2] http://abc11.com/education/survey-calls-nc-the-worst-state-f...

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2016/05/11/a-texas-hi...

Re: A Lincoln High teacher gets all his students to pass the AP Calculus exam

#50

Post by teach »

swang wrote: post #11
hammock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? All the schools I looked at required a 4 or 5.

It depends on your school. 3 is considered passing grade by the collegeboard, but some schools only accept 4+. For example UCI [0] allows 3 for credit, but USC [1] only accepts 4 or above, which I guess is progress since in high school one of the factors (besides the price) was that USC wouldn't accept any AP credits at all. [0] https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/creditandplacement/credit... [1] https://apstudent.col…

Just a nitpick: as others have mentioned, the College Board has no concept of a "passing" grade. Just numeric 1-5. It is colleges and teachers that consider a 3 or better "passing".
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